I wrote this last Saturday night as I massaged the writing moments I had at hand while wishing I would be more productive. Writing isn't a straight line of deep insights or brilliantly combined words.
Sometime it is a matter of simply enjoying and being where you are with your words.
Take a seat and sit with me as I create word-love, free flow style, in the moment, on a February Saturday night. No corrections have been made in the hopes of keeping the process at the forefront:
I am sitting at my desk on a Saturday night wearing sweatpants with a cup of chamomile tea by my side. It doesn’t get much sexier than this, except maybe later when I fall asleep before my children do, all snuggled in with a book with an entire full bed to myself.
I have a ridiculously over scheduled week ahead of me, so I figure I better take the rest of this weekend as quietly as possible.
It helps that I can’t find my phone.
I also feel minorly blocked.
Being one who rarely runs out of topics to write about, tonight I sat at the keyboard nearly silent and quite freaked out by the silence. Me? Silent? Here? Now? Impossible!
But I am.
I could write about
Samuel’s protectiveness of the dogs.
Yet another blathering about all things poetic.
Perhaps mothering a teenager who is getting more and more mature.
My love for San Francisco, Concord, Boston?
Missing my friends who have made the mass exodus to Portland?
Sure, I could write about these things. But right now, I am not at all moved by these things.
So I try the test mile idea:
I think about Improv writing, plucking words and phrases and slices of somethings to make into another something. I wonder if I can find a prompt that unearths something, anything, beyond blather (overusing the word, twice in so few words. Try a synonym for blather: chatter prattle nattering drivel… wow, those sounds are almost like onomatopoeias. What would a room of people saying each of these five words sound like?)
Chatter blather prattle nattering drivel. I spoke them aloud, laughing at the sounds they created.
My father would abhor a room full of people speaking such utterances. Such a thing would make him definitely get up and leave the room and just possibly curse me under his breath as he went.
I delight in it. Let me try a different combination.
Prattle chatter blather drivel nattering.
What is drivel nattering?
I think many young women with their uptalking voices are actually drivel nattering.
I think many of the contestants currently on ABC’s Reality Show the Bachelor are actually driveling natterers.
I want to find something to watch. Looking for shows. Ridiculous. I want to be passively fed some prattle blather nattering drivel chattering.
Ridiculous or cool: My writing about the five word bouquet of natter chatter drivel blather prattle.
WordGeek or Wordlover? Read my highly technical, specialize words that only a certain segment of the population, my niche, will be attracted to reading. I’ll be pre-sifting my future perfect customers!
Fanciful or just plain stupid: My writing about polka dots, rainbows and unicorns is much like a little girls birthday party, not at all like the usual natter chatter drivel blather prattle or is it?
Writing of any kind manages to push me from unproductive to something, which is better than nothing. And besides, I have fallen in love with my word collection of the day: natter chatter drivel blather prattle.
What sort of beyond blather words would you want to write word-love to today?
And now... you write!
Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She teaches a teleclass/ecourse "Discover the Power of Writing & Telling Engaging, Enlightening Stories" which begins again March 15, 2012. Find details by clicking this link.
Did you enjoyed this essay? Receive emails directly to your inbox for Free from Julie Jordan Scott via the Daily Passion Activator. One inspirational essay and poem (almost) every week day. Subscribe here now -
Recent Comments